Mass Effect: Andromeda is not the first to make mistakes

There is something going on with the gaming community at the moment that has to be addressed.

I have never given into the whole “entitled gamers always complain” scene, but this past week has shown a disturbing amount of disrespect, that has left me ashamed of the great community that I have been part of my whole life.

The negativity, the constant bickering, and dear lord the YouTube comments. All this because some media outlets in the United States went on the “bad press is good press” path and slammed Mass Effect for its flaws, especially its unfortunate facial animations.

Yes, I have to agree that the game’s animations are a bit robotic, and perhaps the bugs might be present in the current builds we have seen online, but sadly it only takes a small set of entitled media to bring a game to its knees.

Mass Effect has never had the best animations, both character and facial movements, and we can compare the current game to the second installment all we want.

Bad is bad, regardless of how many years we have advanced in tech and gaming.

The biggest concern for me is just how we have blown this out of proportion. I know the Mass Effect fans are hardcore, hell I am one, but this is just gone to far.

In the past few years alone, we have experienced games that have looked worse than poor Andromeda.

Bethesda has not changed their engine since Fallout 3, so when Fallout 4 was released, the game looks dated as ever.

NPC animations are robotic, conversations look like you are talking to a painting rather than a person, and the bugs, let us not even go there.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt stood as one of the most gorgeous games of its day, but it too had issues here and there with forgettable character interactions and hilarious NPCs.

But in a game with as much hype as Witcher, the downgraded visuals, bugs, and unpolished animations were sidelined.

The Elder Scrolls: Online is still one of the most popular MMOs around, but have you ever actually played it?

While you are doing a dungeon, it looks like you and your teammates are puppets flying around the room with no clear animation paths or transitions.

Let us not forget the conversations that take place where you are subjected to sitting and watching these characters try and be emotional with a straight face.

What I am trying to say is that it seems we think that gaming has all of a sudden advanced 10 years to a time where these things should not happen, and everything is flawless.

What happened to just gaming for the sake of gaming? We loved the previous Mass Effect games to bits, with all their issues, the linear gameplay, and stiff combat.

Andromeda aside, this kind of behavior is shameful.

Just when you think that it is done and dusted, the ripple effect is felt throughout the industry, in ever corner of it, and things get ugly.

The so-called “lead animator” for the game was harassed online by fans.

She received some rather nasty tweets accusing her of offering sexual favors in order to land her job at Bioware.

Seriously, is this how upset we get when our game does not live up to our unrealistic goals? We clearly forgot to treat humans like humans.

With the Mass Effect: Andromeda reviews live already, critics are focusing heavily on the technical issues in the game.

Again this is yet another ripple effect from the original negativity the game faced last week. Sure it is our job to deliver the best honest approach in reviews, but a Bioware game without bugs?

What time are we living in? Most of the reviews are a clear indication that the game has a great story and is a true Mass Effect experience, bar a few glitches here and there.

What I am trying to get across is that you don’t need to follow the herd with these types of situations. Take a step back and look at the fuller picture.

You have media who live on hits, talking negatively about a game for those hits, which causes an uproar in gaming, and everyone gets hurt because fans cannot see further than the forums they sit on all day.

I will be playing Andromeda all week, and all month if need be.

I am sure it will be a stunning Mass Effect experience, give or take a few funny moments here and there thanks to the weird bugs.

What do you think of Mass Effect: Andromeda? Let us know in the comments and forum.

Join the conversation

aknit

Well done. Good article- good points. Too often gamers have double standards about what’s good and what isn’t

–aknit

Angus Davidson

Apart from the online harassment which is never okay. If a software company is going to have such a thing as a pre-order there has to be a reciprocal responsibility to ship a product that meets certain standards. With the size of the teams working on this there is very little reason for issues that they currently have other than a lack of quality control and more then likely been forced to ship it before its been polished up to the correct standard.

Also if you have read the reviews you will notice that its a very broad range of issues. Even on something that was supposed to be their biggest strength. Story and character development.

You have these companies that make their very living on Hyping up expectations for a certain product. When you specifically go out of your way to raise that expectation bar artificially in order to sell more games you cant be surprised at any backlash when your delivered games doesn’t meet those hyped up expectations.

Personally I dont whine about it because I dont pre-order any more. I am quite comfortable to wait for it to have half the bugs at half the price.

MalicE_ZA

While I agree with the overall sentiment, you have to take into account that when you buy an AAA game at an AAA price it’s not unrealistic to expect a certain level of….. polish

oblivionImperialGuard

The project was done by 1st year students

RedJoker

I agree with the sentiment of respect for each other in the community, but these companies are ripping their customers off with terrible business practices. The DLC attached to previous Mass Effect games cost more than the actual game itself. For a skin change? Dragon Age doesn’t do much better. Lets not even get started on uplay. Here we have a new Mass Effect game, that is being critised because of poor work, and we must pay over R1000 for it? The Witcher got away with the downgrade because of how CDProject treats its customers. Same can be said for Bethesda to a point. But the EA and Ubisoft crew leave a lot to be desired. I’m not going to spend money on a game, because of the review. Why do I need to spend a ton of money on something that isn’t up to standard for todays market, just to give the game an opportunity? No. Do your job, release a finished product, then I’ll buy the game.

Pesto

I also don’t buy games until they have come out any more i got cough with The Division
what an amazing game at the start then they patched it and broke it :/

Sad times :/

Pofadder

There is no excuse for a big company like Bioware to deliver a sub par game. If guerilla games can knock it out of the park on their first try with Horizon Zero Dawn then why can’t Bioware not do it on their fourth? I was so looking forward to Mass Effect. I thought they were gonna blow us away to make up for the ME3 mess. I am disappointment. I cancelled my pre-order and got Horizon instead. I am so glad I did. It is freaking brilliant! Maybe a few months down the line if they patched it properly and I get it cheap I will might pick up ME unless RDR2 or Shadow of War is out already, then maybe next year.

prodigyX360

This coming from a guy who pretends to be someone else

aknit

Relax Paul. No one cares.

–aknit

prodigyX360

Well apparently you care enough to google me. I’m touched.

Jiraiya

So we should have lower expectations of a massively popular title (with significant enough financial success) on it’s fourth iteration? No!

Brave Magala

I wonder how the sales numbers are impacted with this negative news.

SkepticZA

I’m somewhat amused by the fact that you seem to be laying the blame at the gaming community’s feet for criticising a AAA release instead of the big publishers who have been releasing full-price (R1000+) sub-par games for years now.
Should we give Andromeda a break just because other big titles had bugs, server issues, missing faces and crappy game-play? I think it’s high time that the community stops putting up with this kind of shameful exploitative behaviour by the big publishers… this extends to day-one DLC, season-passes, in-game micro-transactions and all that other nonsense that is polluting our gaming experience.
I’m a big proponent of smaller indie games and while their scope and ambition is usually less (and the resources at their disposal are proportionally smaller) they usually manage to release far more polished products that are free of the exploitative shenanigans the AAA publishers subject us to.
We should be holding AAA publishers to the same or higher standards than their indie counterparts, yet I find it harder and harder these days to shell out my cash to cover the premium price-tag they demand.

Redshift

I see what you did there…

But I agree, paying through your ass for a game you expect a level of quality. But the public has become full-price beta testers.

Hey, at least this type of negative press is the only thing happening. I mean, some gamer somewhere probably has ties to Anonymous…

Nadim

Definitely, sexism and insulting people are never truly acceptable means of criticism. However, Bioware is bigger than CD Projekt (at least twice the size when comparing headcount, it seems), so one can absolutely question the technical delivery of one versus the other. But in the end, the thing that isn’t touched on above, is that the game is apparently dreadfully boring. And when it’s no fun (and Witcher 3 is a lot of fun), then obviously you will start to nitpick at the small stuff and take it apart.

Wurnman

People, gamers moan. Ive done it and so on and on. I do however feel most times we/us moan just because we can and is not really warranted. Attacking someone’s character online just shows what a dick of a person you are.

Nikiel Gopichand

I think it was a new team within Bioware that developed the game

Jose

I’ve heard similar rumors. If it was common knowledge that the Bioware B-Team developed the title, the game would probably sell badly.

The product is marketed as a Bioware game to grab more sales to the people that don’t know this. If a company uses your famous brand name to sell a sub par product then they deserve the bad press that comes along with it for deceiving paying customers. Bioware only has themselves to blame for their company name now being dragged through the mud.